From Legion to a Legend

You live in a good neighbourhood

He lived among the tombs,

Yours is a life of prospect

His was a life of doom.

He was as strong as strong could be

He would always break his chains,

Psychologist or psychiatrist didn’t matter

Him none of them could tame.

He frequented the mountains

A terrorist wherever he went,

His life was one of terror

Providing Satan with a vent.

He was oft loud and in a rage

He was terrible to the bone

And his unenviable pastime

Was cutting himself with a stone.

One thing could be said for him

He was often on centre stage

Particularly in those times of terror

When he exploded in a rage.

How he had come to be like this

No one seemed to know

But with the help of demons

He was able to stage his show.

No doubt he had a family

And through them a natural birth

For as far as you and I know

That’s how we’re born into the earth.

It is difficult to imagine

That once he was a babe

And was given the kind of loving

That every human craves.

Or perhaps it was never so

Regarding his rearing I mean

And lacking the necessary upbringing

Had become the horror of the scene.

  

That being the nightmarish part

A transformation was about to come

For just stepping off a ship in Galilee

Was Jesus, God’s begotten Son.

Straightway this man confronted him

At first acting respectfully

Acknowledging him as the Son of God

He then complained bitterly.

“Come out of him you unclean spirit

And tell me what is your name.”

“My name is Legion for we are many,”

The demon had made this claim.

And they made a request of Jesus

To let them go into some swine

After which the pigs sped off

Violently down a steep incline.

The pigs all drowned in the lake

That was at the bottom of that incline

And as the people gathered round they saw

The man clothed in his right mind.

He pleaded with Jesus in his request

That he might thus remain with the Lord

But Jesus told him to go to his home

And there he must spread the word.

From terrorist to evangelist,

From bondage to genuine freedom,

From Legion to a legend

This demoniac had met God’s Son.

And so it is with every man

That has come to know the Christ,

A definite change has taken place

Who would think that Legion could be nice?

But such is the power of Jesus

With that divine ability to transform

The chief of the worst of sinners

And calm his raging storm.

You may live in a good neighbourhood,

It may be in the terrace or heights

But without Christ you have no prospect

You are destined to lose life’s fight.

Unless you harken to his word

Another Legion you will be,

Dead in your trespasses and sins

And a spectacle for the world to see.

But from a spectacle to the spectacular

With Christ at centre stage

Your legion of sins would be forgiven,

You’d be cured from your sinful rage.

Just like Legion you’d be a legend

And walk in the way of the righteous,

No longer a child of Satan the devil

But a sinner redeemed by Jesus.

Stewart Russell © July 2017